max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

fine videos daily:
1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri


feat. the beatles, aretha franklin, neil young, dr. dre, will oldham, serge gainsbourg, the kinks, harry nilsson, dusty springfield, the clash, the smiths, al green, rolling stones, cat power, yo la tengo, stevie wonder, antony, wilco, elvis, talking heads, elliott smith, jimi hendrix, r.e.m., ray charles, velvet underground, the monochrome set, randy newman, cure & queen


i write for the nyo, live in nyc, am 25, please email here


"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck


see the archives & a random post


"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso


"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul


"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom. do it very slowly and don't confuse him." -charles mingus


"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits


"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, yeah, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom like a gentle drum. -john cale


"i’ve still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn


"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly


"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george


"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex


gotta think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom


"keep a clean nose, watch the plain-clothes." -bob dylan


"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson


"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian


"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" - shoot the piano player


"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne


"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton


"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector


"at a certain point phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen


"they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe


"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello


"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons


"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face." -woody allen

"where have you been all my life?" -emmylou harris


"the first time i got stoned on grass was with john paul jones of led zeppelin. we'd been talking to ramblin' jack elliott somewhere and jonesy said to me, 'come over and i'll turn you on to grass.' he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie


brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk


ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch


#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun


"the only word is love." -john lennon


thelonious monk's middle name: sphere


"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead


"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash


"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues


"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead.” -pete seeger


"but chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it altogether." -robert christgau


mashable.com says about us: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." and 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction."


download albums, see album covers, photos, posters, quotes & 'staches


the olden days: 08 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 09 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 10 j. f. m. a. m. j. j.


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June 10

#601: willie nelson, emmylou harris, and daniel lanois - the maker (1998)

after daniel lanois was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident this week, he called up a pal and said calmly, “look, i got a lot of broken bones.” god bless that man. for me, what makes the music daniel lanois produces so special is that it’s sooty, smoky, crunched and chewed, and yet every note is perfect and clean. it’s easy to light songs on fire, but not easy to make them smell like charcoal, which is what he does on bob dylan’s time out of mind, brian eno’s apollo atmospheres & soundtracks, u2’s joshua tree, emmylou harris’ wrecking ball (her best album, if you ask me), and willie nelson’s teatro, which the above is from.

besides producing, he also happens to have written songs that are as good as anything those bands have done. the maker is one of them! it’s a religious song that’s heavenly because it’s black and blue. speaking of angels, wim wenders directed the video, and this one, too.

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April 3
it’s not every day that you get to fall in love with a new bob dylan album, but 1970’s new morning is really doing it for me this weekend. it’s marshy, unclean, and hollow-hearted. it hasn’t shaved in days. it dials up its ex-girlfriends in the middle of the night. its only friends are mangy dogs. it leaves the porch light on. it’s awfully good.

it’s not every day that you get to fall in love with a new bob dylan album, but 1970’s new morning is really doing it for me this weekend. it’s marshy, unclean, and hollow-hearted. it hasn’t shaved in days. it dials up its ex-girlfriends in the middle of the night. its only friends are mangy dogs. it leaves the porch light on. it’s awfully good.

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March 22

#552: karen dalton - blues jumped the rabbit (1970)

there are many reasons to see noah baumbach’s new film greenberg, in which ben stiller does a suspiciously excellent job of playing an insufferable neurotic drifting into middle age. the first reason is that it’s very good, but the second is that the main character makes a very important mix for a girl that features karen dalton, the forgotten new york folk singer that bob dylan once compared to billie holiday and jimmy reed (and, less famously, i once compared to a sweater knit by tom waits and van morrison during the james k. polk administration). sadly, greenberg’s official soundtrack doesn’t have any karen dalton songs on it, but i hope the movie encourages people to buy in my own time, which honest to god is the album that dylan’s blood on the tracks wanted to be. it sounds like dusk and red dirt.

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March 1

#539: loretta lynn (with don helms) - your cheatin’ heart (1966)

bob dylan said that when he found out hank williams had been killed, the silence of outer space never seemed so loud. and when loretta lynn plays hank williams’ saddest song with his own pedal steel guitar player, even the dark matter in the colliding galaxies of the famous bullet cluster sheds tears and sniffles. those twangs are hazy cosmic screams.

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February 23
canyons, cocktails, penthouses, and aging go-go dancers is what leonard cohen’s  phil spector-produced 1977 masterpiece death of a ladies’ man smells like. it’s a woozy, brassy, oiled-up, wild-eyed, california king-sized album from a poet who otherwise sleeps on hardwood floors. and its cover is nearly as good as the poster for the 1961 jerry lewis film. its songs haven’t gotten what they deserved. rolling stone called fingerprints “wrongheaded country music,” as if country music was meant to be right-headed, and sighed that the hugely catchy don’t go home with your hard-on was a “rather pointless wallow in raunch,” like pointless leonard cohen raunchiness (with bob dylan and allen ginsberg yowling back-up!) could possibly be a bad thing. the magazine was wrong. even a minute with the album is a minute of bliss. download the album here—the password, if you need it, is power.

canyons, cocktails, penthouses, and aging go-go dancers is what leonard cohen’s  phil spector-produced 1977 masterpiece death of a ladies’ man smells like. it’s a woozy, brassy, oiled-up, wild-eyed, california king-sized album from a poet who otherwise sleeps on hardwood floors. and its cover is nearly as good as the poster for the 1961 jerry lewis film.

its songs haven’t gotten what they deserved. rolling stone called fingerprints “wrongheaded country music,” as if country music was meant to be right-headed, and sighed that the hugely catchy don’t go home with your hard-on was a “rather pointless wallow in raunch,” like pointless leonard cohen raunchiness (with bob dylan and allen ginsberg yowling back-up!) could possibly be a bad thing.

the magazine was wrong. even a minute with the album is a minute of bliss. download the album here—the password, if you need it, is power.

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February 11

#529: de la soul (ft. q-tip and the jungle brothers) - buddy (1989)

the seventeen things that make buddy the best rap video of 1989, in order of appearance: prince paul against a brick wall, black and white footage of an electric scooter, that spoon, opening line “oh, hello! it’s the soul,” the little girl, the out-of-place african mask cartoons, the very complicated condom euphemisms, q-tip’s hat, q-tip’s spectacles, the subterranean homesick blues cards (especially “singing” during the singing), the air djing, the appropriately timed “flip” transition, the incorrect “this video makes no sense” voice bubble, the slow motion break dancing duet, the swatch watch cameo, and of course the “filmed in daisyvision” finale. also, jesus, what a song.

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February 1

#522: willie nelson - mr. record man (1965)

the fact that all five of last night’s grammy rock nominees are older than 50, and that their average age, according to my calculations, is 61.4 years, would lead a reasonable viewer to conclude that young people were not interested in (or good at) making superlative rock music last year. that is wrong.

so in january 2011, instead of nominating bob dylan, john fogerty, bruce springsteen, eric clapton, steve winwood, jeff beck, stevie wonder, booker t. jones, david byrne, elvis costello, levon helm, rambin’ jack elliott, loudon wainwright iii, willie nelson and (of course) neil young for grammys again, the academy should spend some of the ceremony showing clips of these glorious veterans in their prime (see above), take a few minutes to bring everyone up to speed on what they’ve been up to lately, and then dedicate the rest of the broadcast to serious quality time with the gloriously gaga and grizzly youth of today.

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October 6

#456: george harrison - true love (1976)

when you read something george harrison once said about bob dylan and shakespeare and billy joel, you remember what a hilarious genius the bearded beatle was. and then you watch him play your true love with carl perkins (or you watch him play an impromptu call and response version at his funeral) and you think that his life after the beatles was definitely cooler than mccartney’s. and then you watch him play cole porter’s true love in a striped double-breasted suit in a gondola, and have to wonder if all things must pass and thirty three and 1/3 might rival imagine and john lennon/plastic ono band. they don’t, but still: george harrison, quite a guy.

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October 5

#455: bob dylan - it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry (1965)

UPDATE: VIDEO REMOVED, BUT LISTEN HERE.

bob dylan’s music is so perfect that the only thing you can really say is what george harrison once said, which is “he makes william shakespeare look like billy joel.” another thing you can say is that between 1964 and 1966 he released 25 songs that are so perfect you can listen to any them over old footage of trains and die happy. and that’s not including the songs that are just wildly good but not definitely great, or anything on the times they are a-changin, which was released in 1964 but recorded in the previous autumn.

it’s true, just try it at home: there’s spanish harlem incident, chimes of freedom, to ramona, my back pages, i don’t believe you (she acts like we never have met), ballad in plain d, subterranean homesick blues, she belongs to me, love minus zero/no limit, bob dylan’s 115th dream, mr. tambourine man, gates of eden, it’s alright ma (i’m only bleeding), like a rolling stone, it takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry (see above), from a buick 6, ballad of a thin man, queen jane approximately, just like tom thumb’s blues, desolation row, visions of joanna, stuck inside of mobile with the memphis blues again, just like a woman, 4th time around, and of course sad eyed lady of the lowlands.

and if you want to avoid lists you can just repeat what johnny cash said: “i love bob dylan, i really do. i love his early work, i love the first time he plugged in electrically, i love his christian albums, i love his other albums.”

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July 13
this 565-image flickr set of dylan singles is as monumentally awesome as it sounds. although his next album cover should just be this quote: “if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed.”

this 565-image flickr set of dylan singles is as monumentally awesome as it sounds. although his next album cover should just be this quote: “if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed.”

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+

#408: bob dylan - one too many mornings (live, 1966)

the only thing better than a tender and heartbroken bob dylan song about dusk, eyelids, street signs and empty rooms is hearing it played boozily and scowlingly with johnny cash, although dylan’s hung-over, dry-mouthed, half-nauseous version has its advantages too. but the most brutal recording of one too many mornings is the version that sneers and scoffs instead of frowning: this 1966 show isn’t just aloof, it’s unconcerned—and a disinterested love song is the saddest kind.

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May 9
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

the beatles - mama, you’ve been on my mind (acoustic outtake)

happy mother’s day to julia lennon, mary mccartney, louise harrison, elsie starkey and, way more importantly, patti lee garin abelson.

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January 31

#299: bob dylan and will.i.am - pepsi refresh anthem (superbowl ad) (2009)

a fatwa is hereby issued against the pepsi corporation and will.i.am for this massive fucking travesty of a television commercial, which preemptively ruins tomorrow’s football game. “yo yo yo yo/ may you’re hands always be busy”? to hell with will.i.am and to hell with pepsi. i hope they’ve read dante and know what awaits them. meanwhile, bob dylan gets a pass because he made highway 61 revisited, blonde on blonde, john wesley harding, the freewheelin’, bringing it all back home and desire.

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May 26

#128: bob dylan - with god on our side (1963, newport folk festival) (excerpt)

this memorial day, if you listen to 78 seconds of music from bob dylan at age 22, make it these 78 seconds.

this performance makes me believe in truth, beauty, holiness, poetry, peace, love and understanding. but i still think joan baez is slightly annoying.

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March 4
photograph #7: the band’s singer/guitarist robbie roberston and his sunglasses were so cool in 1965 that they made bob dylan and the poets michael mcclure and allen ginsberg look like complete asshole losers by comparison.

photograph #7: the band’s singer/guitarist robbie roberston and his sunglasses were so cool in 1965 that they made bob dylan and the poets michael mcclure and allen ginsberg look like complete asshole losers by comparison.

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